


Escaping Abuse

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27078100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Naomi, abused by a cousin, leaves home
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Escaping Abuse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'aversion'

Escaping Abuse

by Bluewolf

Born into a Jewish family, Naomi Sandburg had abandoned the faith of her birth when she left home a few days before her sixteenth birthday.

Even from a very young age she had tended to question everything, and had inherited from her father a strength of mind that made her challenge everything he said, despite her mother's constant attempts to keep the peace between them. Eventually, after one particularly virulent argument, he told her she was no longer his daughter, and to get out of his house.

If he had hoped that would bring her to heel, he had totally misjudged her. She took five minutes to throw a few clothes into a bag, and walked out.

She didn't know where she was going - just that this was giving her an escape from her father and from her cousin Isaac, ten years older, who lived with them and had been molesting her since she was six. An appeal to her parents for help had been summarily dismissed by her father, who had already decided that when she was old enough, she would marry Isaac, and if he was already teaching her what he expected from his wife, that was perfectly acceptable to him. But she hated what Isaac was doing to her; it gave her an aversion to her cousin that grew and grew as she got older.

Her mother was sympathetic, but completely unable to defy her husband, who had ruled her with a rod of iron from the day her father had chosen the man she was to marry. She had never been happy, but unlike Naomi had never had the strength of will to even try to escape.

There was a hippie commune on the outskirts of the town, and Naomi headed for it, sure that she would find sanctuary there.

She did; and a few days after her arrival there, she realized that she was pregnant.

There was one thing she instantly decided; she might eventually tell her mother about the child, but no way was she going to let either her father (should he learn about her pregnancy) or cousin Isaac know who the father was.

***

There were things she liked about the hippie life, and things she didn't. She joined avidly in protests against various things that Authority proposed or implemented, equating Authority with her father's rarely reasonable demands and expectations. But in some ways she found life in the commune as stifling as life at home had been. And so, not quite two years after going to it, she left with her year-old son, seeking enlightenment elsewhere.

Naomi had occasionally contacted her mother, always during the day when her father would be at work, and when she let her mother know she was leaving the area, she was amazed to discover that ever since Naomi was born and her father had instantly decided that she should marry Isaac, her mother had been quietly and secretly saving money in an account in Naomi's name that her father didn't know about – using a different bank - to give Naomi a chance of escape from the future her father had planned for her. Rachel's one piece of rebellion against a husband she really didn’t like. She had said nothing about it while Naomi was at the commune, in part afraid that the people running it would expect her to hand it all over to them for commune funds, but now Naomi would need the money for herself. Her mother promised to add more money to the account as she could - the way she had been doing for eighteen years - and in turn Naomi promised to be frugal and not let anyone know where her money came from.

It wasn't a huge fortune, but it would leave her independent.

***

She embarked on what she could only call a voyage of discovery around America. Mostly, to save money, she hitch-hiked, finding that people were surprisingly willing to give a lift to a young woman who was accompanied by a small child. To the few who asked about Blair's father, she gave a version of the truth - an older cousin had raped her and left her pregnant and she had run away rather than be forced to marry him. She was trying to get a fair distance from him, and an unsympathetic father, before settling down somewhere and looking for a job.

The last bit was actually a barefaced lie; the money her mother had secreted for her meant that she probably wouldn't ever have to work. But only she and her mother needed to know that.

Yet at the same time... working would let her add a little more to the money in her bank account.

For the moment, while Blair was still pre-school age, no, she didn't want to work; if she worked she would have to spend at least some of her money to pay someone to care for him. Although there were a few times she took a temporary job, standing in for someone who was sick, if she had a neighbor willing to look after Blair for a week or two.

Naomi did realize that once Blair was of school age she would have to settle somewhere so that he could go to school; at least for a year or two, until he learned the basics of reading, writing and counting. But once he was, perhaps, eight, she could resume traveling, and home-school him for a few years.

And then one day when she phoned home, her mother told her that she could - if she wanted - return home. There had been an accident, and both her father and cousin Isaac were dead, along with the drunk driver of the other car, which had been traveling at a very high speed when it hit their car head-on.

"How are you managing, Mom?" she asked.

"Better than I expected," Rachel Sandburg told her. "I asked Peter Hamilton's advice - our lawyer - and he was very helpful. He suggested that I sue the other driver - well, his insurance; I left things in his hands, and while nothing's actually finalized yet, I'm expecting a settlement of close on a million. And Peter's told me I can depend on him to handle anything and everything for me that I can't do myself. Oh, I know I'll have to pay him for everything he does, but I'd rather do that than be cheated."

"Right, Mom, I'll come home, and with luck I'll be able to handle some things for you - and it won't cost you anything. But Mom... I never told you, because I thought it would be easier for you not to know. A few days after Dad told me to leave - I discovered I was pregnant."

She heard Rachel draw a deep breath. "Isaac?"

"Yes. There was no way I was ever going to let Dad or Isaac know about Blair. And when - if - Blair ever asks me about his father, I'm going to tell him I don't know who it was. I'd rather have him think me a slut than let him know that my cousin - with my father's tacit approval - had been raping me since I was six."

"I can understand that," Rachel said. "But that makes it all the more necessary that you come home. I want to meet my grandson!"

***

On her way back to Fort Worth, Naomi considered her options. She would be glad to see her mother again, but would her mother expect her to return to her childhood religion? She had basically found religion stifling, though it had seemed to her that it was more stifling for a girl than it would be for a boy. Come to that, how would Blair react to what would have to amount to a crash course in Judaism? All right, four was still young enough for him to accept it without too much bother. But over the years she had adopted a... not quite religion, but a belief that owed a lot to Buddhism. A way of life rather than a belief in a deity, and she really didn't want Blair tied to the acceptance of a deity. She considered herself a free spirit, and she wanted Blair to grow up to be a free spirit as well. Yes, to lead a life that was law-abiding and unselfish, a life that gave good karma, but not tied down by the rules that organized religion decreed. 

Well, she would have to wait and see. A visit - even if she planned to spend it helping her mother - didn't automatically mean that she had to stay.

***

Naomi was surprised to discover that her mother, who had been a devout member of their synagogue when she was a child, was now no longer a practicing Jew.

"I was a bit like you when I was a child," Rachel said, "except I didn't have the strength to rebel. It was easier to do what my father wanted, and then after I was married, do what your father wanted - and the one wanted a devoutly believing daughter and the other an obediently devout wife. But it was all pretence on my part - though at least I didn't have to suffer the abuse you did." She was silent for a moment. "I never liked Isaac. After his parents died and he came to live with us... he was still a child, hadn't had his bar-mitzvah, and he regarded me as a kind of servant. Made me wonder what his mother's life was like... if her husband considered her a possession...

"I saw plenty of women whose husbands treated them well, thought of them as equals... Was it just the Sandburg men who were such misogynists? - yes, my father was a Sandburg, too - somewhere about a fourth cousin of the man he chose for me to marry." She fell silent for a moment. "My only rebellion was that account I opened in your name. I bought things - food, for example - that was on sale, and what I saved on those sales went into your account. Your father never suspected - something like grocery shopping was beneath his dignity as a Man. I bought my clothes from Goodwill - some people only wear clothes once or maybe twice - "

Naomi nodded. "I got temporary jobs two or three times. There was one place - one of the secretaries... you never saw her wearing the same outfit twice. And everything looked new. Then one day I saw her coming out of a Goodwill shop, and realized what she did. Bought something - oh, a blouse - there, wore it once, maybe twice with a different skirt each time - then took it back and bought something else. She didn't know I'd seen her, and I didn't tell anyone else."

"The difference in price between that and something absolutely new.... I was surprised how much it sometimes was," Rachel admitted. "It did surprise me that your father didn't complain about how much I seemed to spend on clothes, but he seemed to regard that as a subtle indication of how successful he was.

"Anyway, I don't need to do that now. I'll give you half of whatever we get from the driver who killed your father - "

"Mom, you don't need to do that!"

"But I want to," Rachel said. "Then you'll be completely financially independent. And I'll have more money too, between what your father left, my half of the settlement and what I save on clothes, because I won't need to buy so many clothes - and while I didn't grudge doing that when it helped you, I really didn't like buying so many clothes."

***

When Naomi checked, it was to find that Peter Hamilton was indeed very helpful, wanting absolutely the best settlement he could get for Rachel and planning on getting the guilty driver's insurance to pay his fee so that Rachel could get the full settlement.

"I love her," he told Naomi when she met him. "I haven't told her, because I understand how unhappy she was married to your father; I'd rather she thought of me as a friend she could trust than possibly be uncomfortable with me courting her, worrying that I saw her as a potential possession."

Naomi nodded her understanding. "She kept me supplied with money after I ran away to escape being forced to marry Isaac - she'd opened a bank account for me when I was a baby and added money to it as and when she could, wanting to give me a chance of independence. I think she enjoyed indulging in that one bit of rebellion against what my father wanted. She may have told you that I was footloose, enjoyed traveling?"

The lawyer nodded.

"And to a certain extent that's true. I enjoy going to explore what's over the horizon. But now circumstances have changed; I'm home, I'll be staying - at least for four or five years. Then - if Mom's willing - I'll leave Blair with her so that his schooling can continue uninterrupted, and go back to traveling, at least for six months of the year.

"I know Mom appreciates what you're doing for her; and if I ever discover that she feels more for you that just gratitude and friendship, I'll let you know; then it's up to you, if you want to risk trying to take your relationship further."

"Thank you," he said.

And she really hoped that she would be able to give him that assurance, because she understood just how much her mother meant to him.


End file.
